LONDON • Facebook has opened its new London office and said it would add 800 more jobs in the British capital next year, underlining its commitment to Britain as the country prepares for Brexit.

The social network yesterday said more than half of the people working at the central London site will focus on engineering, making it Facebook's biggest engineering hub outside the United States.

It will also house Facebook's first in-house start-up incubator, called LDN-LAB, which will kick start fledgling British digital businesses.

Ms Nicola Mendelsohn, vice-president for Europe, the Middle East and Asia, said Facebook was more committed than ever to the UK and supporting the growth of its innovative start-ups.

"The UK's flourishing entrepreneurial ecosystem and international reputation for engineering excellence makes it one of the best places in the world to build a tech company," she said.

"And we've built our company here - this country has been a huge part of Facebook's story over the past decade, and I look forward to continuing our work."

The new jobs, which come 10 years after the company set up its first London office, will take Facebook's total British workforce to more than 2,300 by the end of 2018, it said.

It announced the new headquarters last year, shortly after Google said it was building a new hub in the city that will be able to accommodate more than 7,000 employees in total.

REUTERS